amaranthine
by WastefulReverie
Summary: After falling through a ghost portal, Kwan finds himself in a bizarre new world where Danny Fenton has a lot more depth than meets the eye.


Amity Park was a weird place. Even before the Fentons ripped a hole in the dimensional fabric, the town was already a supernatural hotspot. Everyone knew that weird things happened in Amity, that sometimes alleys spun you back out into the street you came. Sometimes shadows breathed, whispering forgotten nothings.

Other times, portals appeared out of thin air. Three-dimensional ellipses that sparked and sputtered with an otherworldly exuberance. Kwan eyed the portal that appeared in his bedroom carefully. He'd been texting Star when it tore into existence, hovering two feet above his bed.

_Why did this town have to be so weird?_

Against his better judgment, Kwan reached out and touched the portal. It felt cold and liquidy like he was dipping his fingers into a near-frozen lake instead of an inter-dimensional rip. He tentatively pressed his hand deeper into the portal and suddenly everything lurched forward. The breath was vacuumed from his lungs and he was flying, suspended in some kind of colorful expanse of green and purple. Was this… the Ghost Zone?

It was a lot prettier than he thought it would be. Which might have been exciting, if he hadn't just been sucked into a ghost portal with no idea where he was. Kwan flailed his arms around, trying to find a sense of gravity. The world tipped and just a few feet away, he spotted a portal. A way back home!

He kicked forward, like he was underwater, and flew towards the portal. He passed through the cold, amorphous sphere and fell flat on the ground. It wasn't a big fall, only about a foot or so, but it still knocked the breath out of him _again_ for the second time in less than a minute.

"Ow," he mumbled, pulling himself into a sitting position. That had been an _experience_. In Amity, you heard about creatures that lurked in corners and kids falling into portals, but not many people actually lived to tell about them. Well, or so they said. Once he got back home, he couldn't wait to tell Dash about it! He'd be totally ecstatic!

Where was he, anyway?

He was beside a street, cross-legged in the grass, but he couldn't place what street. He looked up and found a foreign skyline, which… clearly, wasn't good. The portal had thrown him outside Amity Park, which was definitely a first. If only he had his phone, he'd be able to track his location and ask his Mom to come get him, but unfortunately, he'd left it on his bed.

It looked like he had to find his own way back home. So, Kwan pulled himself to his feet and started looking around. Though, the longer he walked the stranger things appeared.

For instance, he'd initially assessed that this wasn't Amity Park, but that's not what the street signs said.

Unless the city had gone through an entire renovation overnight, there was no way that _this_ could be Amity Park. There were so many buildings here! And the houses looked super modern, like out of Tokyo or San Francisco! Yet, whenever he read the signs they heralded familiar names such as 'Casper Crossing' and 'Ebony Street'.

After about four minutes of walking, Kwan spotted another person. It was a man with swept-back blond hair wearing a gray sweater and dark pants. Something about the style of his clothing seemed off, a bit hipster-ish, but Kwan didn't think much of it. He was standing out in his yard, walking his dog (a labrador, maybe?) to the property line.

Kwan caught the man's attention and waved. "Hey!"

The man tightened his grip on the dog's leash. "Hi?"

"This is Amity Park, right?"

The man furrowed his brow. "Uh, yeah? You good, kid?"

"Mm-hm, I'm fine. I fell through a ghost portal, though. Things… seem different."

"A _ghost_ portal?"

Kwan understood why he was skeptical, but surely it wasn't unheard of. "Yeah."

"Look, if you're looking for FentonWorks, it's five blocks that way. Just… don't post this on whatever paranormal documentary you're making, okay?"

And with that, he walked back towards his house, keeping his dog close.

"That was weird," Kwan noted. Why did he think he wanted to go to FentonWorks or was filming something? He supposed that the Fentons did attract some international paranormal attention, so that could be it.

Kwan trekked up the street, trying to make a mental map of where he was. If FentonWorks was five blocks away like that guy said, then that meant the school was only seven blocks east… so Kwan's house should be at least ten streets beyond that. _Ugh! _Maybe he should just swing by Dash's house and hang out there before going home because he was not in the mood to walk that much.

Kwan weighed his options some more, paying little mind to his surroundings. He must've been thinking really deep because the next thing he knew, he'd collided face-first with some sort of… flying thing? Kwan jerked back and ran his hand over his throbbing face, hoping that would soothe the ache. Lo and behold, there was a drone hovering in front of him. A _super_ high-tech drone, like something that Foley would gush about.

He couldn't really name any of the parts because he wasn't smart enough, but there was obviously a camera mounted on the front. And some kind of laser projector thing, that was… scanning him?

"Uh… what?"

The device chirped and turned red. _"__Facial scan: adolescent. School hours in session. FaceID not registered."_

"What?" It wasn't a school day. Kwan was pretty sure it was a Saturday, otherwise, his parents were going to _flip_.

The drone moved with robust speed and used a mechanical arm to clamp something on his wrist. _"__Alerting authorities."_

What the hell? A drone was calling the cops on him?

"I—I didn't do anything, though!"

The drone was silent. Kwan waved his hand in front of it, but it just hovered there. Would it follow him if he left? Would it fire at him? Most importantly, when did the police department even _get_ these things? Kwan knew he didn't pay attention to the news or anything, but surely he would've noticed one of these things flying around.

Kwan swallowed. "Are they still coming?" he asked it.

The drone didn't reply, so Kwan tried taking a few steps back to see what it would do. Still, nothing. _Weird._ He took more steps back, faster this time. When the drone didn't follow, he broke into a mad run. He wanted _away _from that thing.

He must have ran for a good three minutes before he saw the squad car. It looked like something out of one of those sci-fi movies, hell, it didn't even have a driver! The cop was sitting in the front and messing with some panels on the interior of the vehicle. The cop unbuckled and started to get out of the vehicle and Kwan wondered how he had found him. He'd ran far enough away from the drone.

Something on his wrist beeped and Kwan remembered that the drone had put something on him. _A tracker_. How hadn't he noticed that?

The cop was in front of him now. He was saying something about how it wasn't smart to cut class and that he was getting an earful from his principal.

"Sir," Kwan interrupted. "I don't even know what you're talking about. I was just walking around! It's not a school day!"

"Kid, it's a Wednesday."

"What?"

"Don't play dumb, just get in the car."

"How is it Wednesday?" Kwan asked. "It was Saturday!"

It was Saturday… before he'd fallen through the portal. Had he jumped forward a few days? Wait, had he jumped forward a few _years_? No way, time-travel wasn't real! This couldn't be the future, could it?

"W—what year is it?"

The cop rolled his eyes. "What are you trying?"

"Please, I think I uh, might have hit my head?"

The cop regarded him carefully. "You need the hospital?"

"No, no. Just the year. What year is it?"

"2098?"

"Oh shit. _Fuck_. Please, tell me you're joking."

"Kid… just get in the car."

Kwan got in the car. _The self-driving car._ And the cop drove him all the way to Casper High… to meet his doom with some principal that wasn't even Mrs. Ishiyama. Because Mrs. Ishiyama was dead because it was _2098._

How was he going to get home? How could he explain to these people that he was from ninety years in the past? Would they even believe him?

As they approached the school, Kwan's stomach turned in knots. This wasn't _good_. He had a bad feeling about this.

"What's your name, kid?" the cop asked. "You're not showing up in the system. Must be a glitch."

"System?"

"The facial database. Now, name?"

He gulped. "Kwan."

"Kwan…?"

"Kwan Li."

The cop pulled out a napkin and a pen and wrote down his name.

"Alright, 'Kwan', you better not be lying to me. Because this incident _will_ be going on someone's record."

"Okay?"

"Now," he threw open the car door, "let's have a meeting with Principal Carr, shall we?"

Kwan didn't move. He didn't want to meet the principal. He wanted to go home.

"Come on, I don't have all day."

Unfortunately, neither did Kwan. If he wanted to get home, he'd have to move from this car at some point. It was best to just get this mess over and figure things out from there.

Kwan stepped out of the police car and followed the cop across the parking lot. The front of the school had been completely renovated, which wasn't exactly surprising. You can't expect a building to stay the same after ninety years, especially a building that gets routinely destroyed by ghosts. Wait, do ghosts still attack in the future? Kwan hadn't seen any ghosts yet, but he'd only been in the future for a few minutes.

"Do ghosts attack the town, still?" he blurted.

The cop looked back at him. "What?"

Kwan's face felt hot. "I, um. Heard something… about ghost attacks. I was wondering if they still happened? I figured that a cop would know."

"What? You mean those urban legends? Don't buy into that, kid. I've lived here for thirty years and I've never seen anything like a ghost. Our ancestors were paranoid and that's that."

"Oh."

_Well, that answers that._

They stopped in front of Principal Ishiyama's office, except it wasn't her office. Through the window, Kwan could see a lanky man in a simple blazer. It felt wrong. That _should_ be Ishiyama's office, but it wasn't. Because Ishiyama wasn't here. Not Mr. Falluca or Mrs. Rosenburg or Ms. Reynolds. Although Lancer might still be here—Kwan's friends had a joke that since he was already older than dust, he probably just _couldn't_ die.

"So?" the cop asked. "Are you going to go in?"

"Do I _have_ to?"

He gave Kwan a pointed look.

Kwan took a deep breath and pushed open the door. It took him a moment to register that there was someone else in the principal's office.

"—not my fault that he makes the class so _bad_."

The boy in the chair carried a calm demeanor, resting his sneakers against the side of the principal's desk. His black hair stuck up in odd places, juxtaposed against his milky, pale skin. There was something in his eyes too, those sharp blue eyes. He looked like he was in his element, wearing a black, NASA T-shirt and navy blue pants.

Kwan stood in the doorway for a moment, dumbstruck.

Was that…?

No, no way.

This was 2098. Why would Danny Fenton still be alive? Why would Danny Fenton still be _sixteen_? This was just his relative, that's it! His relative that looked exactly like him. That happened sometimes, didn't it?

It was just uncanny, that's all.

"Excuse me?" Principal Carr turned to Kwan. "What do you need?"

The boy in the chair glanced back at the door. For a moment, their eyes met and Kwan saw something raw, vulnerable, and _shocked_. The boy did his best to cover up his reaction, but there was no hiding what had just happened.

He _recognized _Kwan.

Could that be Danny Fenton, then? Had he time-traveled too?

His mind reeled. Nothing made sense anymore. He tried to say something, _really_ tried. But before he could act, the cop pushed Kwan forward and made himself known to the principal.

"This young man was caught off campus by one of our drones."

Principal Carr nodded. "He'll be disciplined with due process. I'm in the middle of a meeting at the moment, so he can wait outside."

Kwan's eyes were still on the boy in the chair. _Danny_. The cop had to pull Kwan's arm again to get him to move. Suddenly, he was seated in the waiting chair outside and the cop was talking to him.

"—have to go back on patrol, so you better not leave that chair."

Had a portal appeared in Danny's bedroom, too? He looked like he'd been here for some time, though. He looked familiar with his surroundings and had been talking about one of his classes. Maybe he time-traveled a few weeks before Kwan had arrived. That would make sense. But would that mean that he hadn't figured out how to get home? Were they stuck here?

"Kid? You spacing out on me?"

"Huh? Oh, no. I'm listening."

"Good." And with that, the cop left. Kwan hardly registered his departure, trying to piece this entire mess together in his mind.

He probably sat there for a good ten minutes before the door opened again.

Danny walked out and gave Kwan a mild look. "Your turn." Then, he swung his backpack over his shoulder and turned the corner into the next corridor.

Kwan stood there for a moment. This time, Danny hadn't given any indication that he knew him. Kwan might be dense, but he wasn't that dense. He _knew_ that was Danny Fenton; whatever the guy was trying to pull, it wouldn't work. He couldn't just pretend everything was normal because it wasn't. After Kwan got out of this stupid principal's office, he was tracking Fenton down.

The meeting with Principal Carr went as well as Kwan expected. The man tried looking Kwan up on his… computer thing? It was another future thing that he doubted he would understand. Anyway, Carr couldn't find Kwan at all and accused him of using a fake name. Kwan wished he had his wallet so he could show him his student ID, but then again, it had his school year printed on it, so that wouldn't help at all.

Eventually, Kwan got out of the entire mess by admitting that he wasn't a student and that the cop wouldn't believe him no matter what he said and that he was sorry for wasting everyone's time. Principal Carr was reluctant but accepted Kwan's story. He shooed him out of his office and told him to get home safely.

Kwan made it about twenty feet away from the principal's office before he walked straight into Danny. He'd shed his backpack at some point, and appeared to be waiting for him.

"Kwan?"

"Danny? It's actually you?"

Danny's eyes widened. "I should ask you the same thing. How are you even here? You're dead. You've been dead. For the past twenty years and—and you still look like you're in high school."

Kwan was confused now. Why was his age such a big deal when Danny was the same age?

"I mean, so do you? Because we _are _still in high school?"

"Yeah but I'm… I'm me. And you're… you're so young. _Ancients_, this is messing with my fucking head."

Danny put his hand on Kwan's arm.

"How did this happen? Are you a ghost?"

"What? No, I fell through some portal that appeared in my room. Why? Didn't you time travel, too?"

"Time travel?"

"Yeah. It was _crazy_, right? One second I'm texting Star, the next there's this thing in my room. So I go to touch it and then I'm in the Ghost Zone and everything is spinning and so I try to go back into the portal, but then I come back out on some street and it's 2098."

Danny looked like he'd swallowed something vile. "I can't believe this."

"Dude, me neither."

"No, I mean… it's hard to explain."

Kwan was confused again. "What is?"

Danny stared at him for a good ten seconds before looking up at the ceiling. "When are you from? Like, what year?"

"2006."

"Month?"

Suddenly this felt like an interrogation.

"December."

"Okay. December 2006… that's when I was sixteen?"

"Aren't you sixteen, though? You look the same."

"Kwan, I always look the same. I don't… _change_. Clockwork, how do I put this?"

"Put what? You're not making any sense, dude."

"I don't age. I'm one-hundred-and-eight years old trapped in a fourteen-year-old body."

Kwan's breath hitched in his throat. "What?"

"I can't die either."

"_What_."

Danny Fenton… weak, skinny Fentoenail with baggy clothes, a weird thermos, and infamous parents, was _immortal_? He couldn't see it. Supposedly, Fenton was over a century old, but he looked exactly the same as he had yesterday when Dash shot spitballs into his hair.

"It's kind of a long story," Danny shrugged. "But we can talk about it if you want? Then I can help you get back to your own time?"

This was too bizarre. Dash would never believe this, even if he told him. Would anyone believe Kwan if he told them?

"Uh, alright?"

"Okay. I'll sign myself out of school and then we'll go over to my house."

Danny reached into his pocket and pulled out some kind of device that vaguely resembled a phone, but not. Then, he pulled out some kind of pen device and pressed a button. He spoke into the pen-thing and out came Jack Fenton's voice. Danny then called someone on his phone.

"_Hello, I'd like to check out my son, Daniel Manson, for early dismissal?" _he said in Jack's voice. "_I can't get a good parking space, so I'm waiting just up the road. Do I have to come in?" _He paused. _"__Alright, thank you."_

Danny pocketed his pen-thing and Kwan gaped at him.

"What was that?"

"Voice modulator. I programmed it with my parents' voices whenever I need to pretend to be them. They used to be a problem back in the day, but they were outlawed in the early 40s, so no one bothers to check for them anymore."

"Why were they outlawed?"

"Lots of criminals were using them to frame innocent people. It was a whole controversial thing, but now using someone else's voice to abet criminal activity is illegal."

"_Dang._"

They started walking towards the attendance office in heavy silence. Kwan felt like he should start some kind of small talk, but what do you say to your classmate you just found out was immortal? What do you say to someone from the future?

"So…" Kwan started, "why are you even in school if you're so old?"

"Eh, it's something to do. I tried working in a few places but it wasn't as fun as just sitting around all day and learning things, so I decided to come back to where it all began."

"Oh."

The lady in the attendance office let Danny off without any problems. Suddenly, they were two blocks from the school and Kwan realized he hadn't said anything in the past ten minutes. Had he been thinking that entire time? Or had he zoned off?

"Do you still live at FentonWorks?"

They were walking in that direction, so Kwan figured that's where they were going.

"Yeah. Not officially, though."

What did that mean?

They walked for another two minutes before reaching FentonWorks, the pinnacle of Amity Park's peculiarities. Most people called it a blight on the city's landscape, but those who'd been inside knew that it was more than that. It was a death trap disguised as a house. During that ghost pirate crisis, Kwan had been unfortunate enough to open the fridge only to be attacked by a bunch of rabid, glowing hotdogs. Half of the football team had to corral them back into the fridge.

The first thing that Kwan noticed was that the UFO structure on top of the house was missing. The top of the house looked bare without that monstrosity sitting on it and hanging out into the street. The LED 'FentonWorks' sign was also nowhere to be seen. Everyone knew that sign was Jack Fenton's pride and joy—he must've rolled over in his grave whenever it was taken down. Lastly, the upstairs curtains were all drawn and the front door was boarded up. The house had an air of vacancy and Kwan couldn't possibly imagine Danny living in it.

"You sure you live here?"

"Yep."

He sounded amused. Kwan didn't see why that was funny.

"Why's it all boarded up, then?"

"To keep people out. It doesn't work, though. People break in every few months."

"Why?"

"It's a haunted house. Home to the mad scientists that supposedly tore a hole into the ghost dimension. Why else would people try and break in?"

Kwan gaped at him. "It's haunted and you still _live_ there?"

"To be fair, I'm technically the one haunting it."

"Huh?"

Danny didn't answer. Instead, he grabbed Kwan's shoulder and pulled him forward.

"This is going to be cold, but don't freak out."

Before he could respond, his entire body seized with numb, iciness. He gasped in shock, realizing that his entire body was cast in some kind of blue haze. Danny was pushing him towards the boarded-up door. He was going to hit his head on it. He was going to hit his _head_—

He passed through the door and was thrust into darkness. Danny let go of his shoulder and the icy feeling receded.

_What the hell?_

"Did we just go through the door?"

Danny nodded. "Mm-hm."

"How?"

"I phased us through." He said it like it was obvious.

"Yeah, but _how_?"

"I really thought you'd've guessed by now. I mean, you already know that I'm immortal."

It was like he was having fun dangling this over his head. Kwan still had no idea what Danny was going on about. Didn't he get that?

"I'm a ghost. Well, technically half-ghost."

At this point, if Danny told Kwan that he was God, he might actually believe him. At first, he thought that Danny was just another time traveler. But then apparently he's over a hundred years old and can't die. _Now _he's a ghost? What was today turning into?

In the darkness, Kwan could see Danny waving his hand in front of his face. "Earth to Kwan, you good?"

"Do you have any other mind-shattering secrets?"

"Oh, plenty," Danny laughed. "Why, do you want to hear them?"

"You're shitting me."

"Nope." Danny spun around and walked further into the darkness. Kwan could see the vague outlines of furniture, but not much else. All he knew for certain was that everything smelled like dust.

"Isn't there a light switch or something?"

"Not down here. I only live upstairs. I don't really bother with the downstairs anymore. So many people break into this place, that I don't really have a choice. It has to look like a haunted house, otherwise, people might get suspicious and wonder why my house looks lived in. It's fine though, I've blocked off the upstairs and rigged it to a generator. My own little annex."

"Isn't that the place where Anne Frank lived?"

"Sorta. It just means extra space."

Danny's voice was farther away now. Was Kwan supposed to follow him? He couldn't see. What if he walked into something?

"You coming, or what?"

"It's uh, dark." Kwan felt stupid saying it.

"Oh. That's right. I forget about my night vision sometimes, sorry."

Something grabbed his wrist. Kwan jerked back before he realized that it was just Danny. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears and the darkness still felt like it was closing in on him.

"You good, man?"

He forced a laugh. "Yeah."

Danny led him through the darkness to the other side of the room. This time, Danny warned him and they phased through the wall. It felt less disorienting than it had the first time but it still wasn't pleasant. On the other side of the wall, there was a staircase leading to the rest of the house. Kwan had to give it to Danny, it was pretty clever dividing the house up so he wasn't caught by trespassers and paranormal 'specialists'.

Danny opened the door to his bedroom and switched on the light. The first thing that Kwan noticed was that the walls were very blue. Danny had a few posters here and there, mostly of spaceships and sci-fi movies (some which hadn't even come out yet!), but Danny's royal wallpaper drew the eye like a moth to a flame. The color suited him and Kwan could see why he'd picked it.

The rest of Danny's room was cluttered with typical bedroom stuff, save for a few futuristic knick-knacks laying around. He had some kind of hybrid bed; it was somehow a _couch_ and a _bed_ that could slide up and down, so that was cool. It looked really comfortable, especially with that fluffy galaxy comforter. Kwas would probably never leave his room if he had a bed like that.

Beside his bed, Danny had lots of bookshelves. He never pegged Fenton for the reading type, so that took him off-guard. Then again, Danny was over a hundred-years-old so he'd probably found solace in books sometime in the past century. There were also a bunch of photos taped to the inside of the shelves; old, grainy pictures juxtaposed by fresh, glossy prints. Kwan caught glimpses of Danny's family and friends, purple caps and gowns, green wastelands, and futuristic cities... a timeline of Danny's life.

Kwan suddenly realized that he wasn't standing in the future anymore.

He was standing in someone else's past.

Everything was so surreal. Danny had lived more than a lifetime and had accumulated so many experiences that Kwan couldn't even begin to imagine. While his brain ran itself in circles, Danny strode across his bedroom and hop up on his bed with a sense of ease. He patted the mattress beside him.

"You can take a seat if you want."

If it were any other day, sitting next to Danny Fenton on his bed would be _weird_. Actually, no. It was still weird. To be honest, this was probably weirder if he was sitting next to sixteen-year-old Danny.

"Okay," he breathed.

The bed shifted under Kwan's weight and Danny leaned to the side so that they both had some legroom.

"So… you're probably wondering why I'm still alive."

That and everything else he'd let slip. "_Yeah._"

"Like I said, it's a long story. I guess it really started with Vlad Masters and my parents, but that'd take even longer to explain. Pretty much, you know the portal that my parents built? The one that let ghosts into the human world?"

"Who doesn't know about it?" Kwan cocked his head. "It's all they talk about besides catching Phantom."

He winced. "Man, you're _really_ from the beginning, aren't you?"

"Huh?"

"Doesn't matter. Pretty much, the portal wasn't working right. So when I was a Freshman—the first time, anyway—I tried fixing it. And lucky me, I did it! Shocked me to hell and back. And I've been fourteen ever since."

Kwan was sure his eyes were the size of saucers. "Just like that? An electrocution?"

"I mean, if you want to go into technicalities... a lot more happened than just a shock. My entire body was infused with ectoplasm, which killed me pretty much instantly. But then the ectoplasm revived me, trapping me in some kind of suspended state between life and death. My body is alive, but I can't age and I can't die. I'm half-ghost, with ghost powers and the whole shebang."

Kwan tried to process what he was saying but his mind failed to grasp Danny's words.

"B—but how?"

"It's been ninety-four years and I still don't understand it. I like to think that I'm just a ghost with a heartbeat because that's not too far off the mark."

"So you… the Danny I go to school with in 2006 is already a ghost?"

"Yep. As soon as I realize what happened to me, I panicked. Sam and Tucker saw it happen, but we tried our best to keep it under wraps. I was so scared of my parents finding out about it all because you _know _how they acted around ghosts. Plus, at the time, I just thought that I was a human with ghost _powers. _I never imagined that I was immortal. I didn't figure the aging thing out until I was eighteen, and I found out that I couldn't die… when I was twenty-six?"

There was something in Danny's tone that Kwan didn't like. Something… indicative and self-deprecating. He wanted to ask _how_ Danny found out he couldn't die, but Kwan wasn't that dumb. He knew that there were some subjects that you didn't ask about.

Instead, he opted for another question.

"But since you can't age… people noticed, didn't they? People _will _notice," he realized.

Danny nodded. "When I was nineteen, my parents started getting concerned that I wasn't growing or aging or anything. They wanted to take me to doctors and—and run all sorts of things. So, I came out to them. I told them exactly what had happened to me and what I'd been doing. They were really upset for a while. They got over it in a few months. After that, I dropped out of college and stayed home, helping them with the lab and stuff. I sorta stayed out of the public eye for as long as I could. As Fenton, anyway."

"'As Fenton?'"

Danny grinned and for a moment Kwan swore that his eyes flashed green.

"I guess I forgot to mention that part."

"What part?"

"The part where I accidentally became a superhero."

"_What?_"

He laughed. "Yeah. I was Phantom."

Danny… was Phantom? He couldn't see it. Phantom was so strong and witty. He was Amity Park's _idol_. Danny might be half-ghost, but there was no way that they could be the same person.

"Nuh-uh. I don't—you're bullshitting me. Seriously, this is too much."

"Want me to show you?"

He was amused. Why was he amused? There's no way that this could be true.

"You're making this up."

Danny stood in the middle of the room and raised his arms into the air. "Am I?" With that, a white ring circled around his waist and split. Two halos slid over Danny's clothes and changed them into some kind of black, glossy material. Kwan's breath hitched in his throat. _Holy shit_

Green eyes slid over blue, and white hair emerged in lieu of black. His face was the same. How had he never realized that their—_his_—face was the same?

"I think I'm gonna pass out."

Phantom's wisecrack grin played on his lips. "Good thing you're on a bed, then."

His head actually felt heavy. He'd never been this shocked before, but he was pretty sure this was what it felt like to go into cardiac arrest.

"This is fucking _crazy_."

"Welcome to my life._It never ends_."

Did he just—?

Oh, God. He did. He made an immortality pun. This was definitely Phantom.

"You're the worst person I've ever met," he groaned.

Why did he have to make this so hard? Why was understanding Danny so damn _difficult_?

"I get that a lot, believe it or not."

"I think you're going to have to start over because I'm trying to process this and I just _can't_."

Phantom seemed to understand. He floated back over to the bed and shifted back into Danny, black hair and blue eyes. "Take your time."

If anything, that made Kwan's mind spiral even more. He leaned forward, digging his fingers into his hair.

"I know that you're half-ghost and I know that you're Phantom, but for some reason, I can't put the two together."

It didn't register. The idea that Danny Fenton was a superhero was ludicrous. Yet, he'd watched him _change_ right in front of him. There was no denying it, he was just... denying it.

"I think it helps if you don't think of my ghost form as _Phantom_. Phantom is just a name I used. It was always me, I was playing the part of Phantom."

"But why do you… why do you do it? You're just a kid, like me. We always—_I_ always thought that Phantom was some old spirit that protected Amity Park. You still go to school! And—and your parents go after you!"

Danny shrugged. "I mean, it's not really that different from what you thought. I protected Amity because I was strong enough and nobody else was going to do it. Sure, I did miss out on a lot. But I'm fourteen forever, so most of it's nothing I haven't made up already. Most, anyway."

He didn't know what to say to that. "Wow."

Danny was silent for a moment. From his solemn demeanor, Kwan wondered if he'd said something wrong, but after a few seconds, Danny shook his head.

"This is probably doesn't mean much from me, but life goes fast. So if you have the chance, don't miss out on things. Because sometimes it's something you'll never get back again, even with all the time in the world."

That was… heavy.

"Spoken like a true old man," he tried to ease the tension.

"I mean it, though," Danny insisted. "Sometimes that dance you thought you'd get… you never get it back. That wedding, graduation, or even just watching a movie—gone. You think that person will always be there for you, but they won't. I learned that lesson way too late. And then, I—" he choked, "—then I wasted so much time wallowing in my mistakes."

Kwan didn't want to overstep boundaries, but he couldn't help but ask.

'"Are you okay?"

"I am now. Mostly. It's just… you lose so many people in one-hundred and eight years. There was a time, where I tried everything to die. Literally, everything. I thought if I could be with them, that everything would be alright again. But the longer I tried to die, the more people died around me… and I… kept losing." He looked somewhere behind Kwan. He traced his gaze and realized he was looking at something on his bookshelf. "Live life to the fullest and don't let that time get away from you and the people you love."

Kwan could see it in his eyes. His pain, his regrets, his misery. Although, that wasn't all there was. Underneath it all… there was something warm, looking forward. He'd seen eyes like that before. His grandfather had served in World War II and had that same look. He'd pressed himself down into the trenches, surrounded by the corpses of his fallen comrades. He'd seen the horrors of war and loss, however, he was still one of the most jovial men than Kwan had ever known. Before he died, he told heartfelt anecdotes about the little things in life.

Deep down he was a sad person. But he learned from the darkness inside of him and grew to appreciate everything that life offered. _That's_ what was in Danny's eyes. Something visceral, something _honest_.

"That's really good advice."

Danny brushed the back of his neck. "Eh, I probably said too much."

"No, no. You're fine."

"Oh, okay. So uh, do you have more questions?"

Kwan thought for a moment. He had so much that he didn't know that he didn't even know _what_ to ask.

"If you're Phantom, how don't your parents know? And why haven't I noticed before? And is there anyone that knows? Am I allowed to tell you I know? Or is this gonna be like one of those sci-fi movies where you erase my memory—oh, God! Please don't erase my memory. Also, I was talking to this guy earlier and he said there aren't any ghosts in Amity anymore. What's with that?"

Danny chuckled. "First off, I really don't know why anyone didn't realize I was Phantom. I kinda made it obvious, running off whenever ghosts appeared and turning up again after a fight—usually injured. My parents thought I was contaminated for a while, which wasn't _wrong_ I guess? Then uh, I'm not gonna erase your memory because I can't do that and the only ghosts I know that can wipe memories aren't that reliable."

"Whew, thank God."

"For letting me know… I don't think that you should change the timeline. From my recollection, you've never known my secret. So you should pretend that you don't know my secrets and that you _never_ traveled to the future. If anything, you could always pretend to 'discover' my secret, but don't tell past-me about the future. I'll freak out."

"Oh, okay."

Kwan was horrible at keeping secrets. Paulina said so, and she was the worst at keeping secrets! Once Paulina knew something, the entire school knew within a day. So if Kwan blew this, Danny was doomed.

_I can't mess this up, then._

"For your last question, that goes back to around the time my Dad died. My Mom wasn't able to deal with all the ghosts coming out of the portal anymore, not with Dad gone. She didn't want to continue their research, especially after what it did to me, so she shut it down for good."

"So you quit fighting ghosts?"

"Oh, no. I'd already retired the hero gig by then. I kept it up for ten years before the public campaigned for more reliable ghost hunters, so I just handed it off to them. Protecting people was what kept my ghost half grounded, but by the time the police organized a Ghost Unit I was so sick of fighting. Then, when Mom shut the portal down, the Ghost Unit dissolved altogether. Amity Park hasn't been haunted in nearly sixty years, excluding me."

"And nobody believes in ghosts anymore, either?"

"Not many people remember. The young folks think that it's just an old superstition or some kind of tourist bullshit. Every once in a while… they say if you visit the park at night, you'll see a ghost with white hair and green eyes, though. _The Amity cryptid_."

"You—you're kidding me."

He laughed. "I get bored sometimes, and I like stargazing."

"Jeez, do you know how hard it's going to be for me to go back to my own time and _not_ tell everyone that Danny Fenton is an immortal, half-ghost, cryptid in the future?"

"I'm sure you can do it. After all, you managed to hold your tongue all throughout Senior year that Dash had a thing for Zac Efron."

"H—he _does_?"

"Yeah, and it was great. There had to be better ways to come out, but nope. Three weeks before graduation, he let it slip to Paulina that he had the hots for Troy Bolton. The entire school knew within an hour. I figure that there was no way that you didn't know, being his best-friend and all. So, I trust you."

"Thanks."

Danny glanced at a device on his nightstand, some kind of futuristic clock thing. "It's getting late. We should probably try and get you home now. I mean, not that I want you gone. It's nice having someone… back from my childhood. But I don't want you to feel stuck here, or anything. Or to find out _too_ much about the future."

Kwan didn't want to leave, but he didn't want to disagree with Danny either. "Alright."

"I have a friend in the Ghost Zone, Clockwork. He's the Master of Time and can send you straight back to the past."

"Didn't you say your Mom shut down the portal?"

Danny grinned. "I have my ways. Once she died, I figured out how the open the portal temporarily and set it on a timer. Took a few months of hardcore engineering, so I guess it's good I learned the basics before I dropped out of college."

Danny led him back into the main part of the house. He'd cut off the lab from the rest of the house—just like he'd done with the upstairs—to keep it safe. Together, they phased through the wall into the lab. Kwan hated to admit it, but the first thing he did when Danny turned on the lights was scream.

"Why is there a _skeleton_ in a _lawn chair_?"

Danny eyed the skeleton in the center of the room. "Oh, I forgot about him."

_Holy shit, did Fenton starve someone to death down here? Holy shit, holy SHIT_—

"Just in case someone knocked down the wall and broke into the lab, I set this up as a joke. I got it from Halloween Express… eight years ago?"

"Oh." Luckily, he was just a shitty prankster. "I thought you'd killed someone."

He scoffed. "Like I'd put their body on display. I'm a 'bury-the-body-in-the-woods' kind of guy."

Kwan laughed, then paused. "You _are _kidding, right?"

"No, Kwan. Obviously, my moral compass has degraded over the past century and I've turned to homicide. I'm—I'm a serial ghost. Phantom of the uh, _shit_, what's an opera pun?"

"Opera?"

He sighed. "Just forget it."

"Oh, okay."

Danny moved to the back of the lab and started fiddling with a control panel beside an empty cavity in the wall. "You might want to step back because once the portal turns on, it can get a bit unpredictable."

Knowing that the portal was what made Danny immortal in the first place, Kwan pressed himself against the furthest wall possible. Danny pulled a lever and green light erupted all throughout the lab. In the eye of the explosion, reality pulled itself apart at the seams and the portal filled the cavity in the wall—just as it was made to.

Kwan was pretty sure his jaw was on the floor. That was… _spectacular_. It reminded him of one of those light shows he'd watched as a kid!

"I don't mean to rush us, but we have two hours before this closes."

He stretched his arms over his head and swiftly transformed into Phantom. The change wasn't as jarring as last time, but it still threw Kwan off-guard. He blinked a few times, trying to solidify the idea that Danny was Phantom.

Phantom floated forward and wrapped his arm around Kwan's back. "We gotta go fast, so I really hope you don't get motion sick."

Kwan didn't know what that meant and he wasn't sure that he _wanted_ to know. And then, Phantom pulled Kwan into the air and leaned into the portal. The world passed in blurs of green and it took him a good twenty seconds to realize that he was flying.

_Oh my God, I'm flying? What?_

He was pretty sure he'd left his stomach back in the lab because he couldn't even feel it at this point.

"You good?" Phantom asked.

Kwan's response was unintelligible.

"Cool."

_Dude…_

They didn't fly as long as Kwan had anticipated, which was a relief. They reached Clockman's Tower in about ten minutes. It was a tall, green structure that actually _looked_ like a grandfather clock—so that was cool. Phantom phased through them through the wall and they landed in a room full of more clock knick-knacks.

"Your friend really has a hard-on for clocks."

For a moment, Phantom's face was unreadable and Kwan wondered if his joke hadn't been all that funny. Then, someone spoke behind him.

"That's not the worst first impression I've received, but that still stings."

Kwan felt himself blush. Did he just… say that in front of the dude? _Yikes._ He turned behind him and came face to face with a floating kid in a purple cloak. Oh, he'd said that about a kid—_double yikes._

"Then again, Daniel tried to fight me the first time we met, so the bar is pretty low."

Phantom pressed his hand to head. "Do you always have to bring that up?"

"It's a fond memory. It was amusing watching you slam into my bell over and over."

"There's so many things I could say right now, but I don't have time for another argument with you. Clockwork, this is Kwan. Kwan, this is Clockwork."

Kwan held his hand out to shake, but Clockwork just floated past him.

"I know why he's here."

Phantom didn't falter. "Right. So, you'll send him back to his time?"

"Well, that's where it gets a little complicated. You know how my medallions work, correct?"

Suddenly, Clockwork's form shimmered and he transformed into an adult. Kwan gaped at the change, but Phantom acted as if nothing had happened.

"Yeah, whenever you send someone into a time that's not their own, they have to wear the medallion to stay displaced. Once they take it off, they're zapped back into their natural time."

"Exactly. My powers are limited. I can't _permanently_ displace someone in time."

"So… where's the problem?"

"Kwan traveled into the future through a ghost portal. _This_ is his natural time, now."

"Oh."

"So if he wants to stay in his own time, he'll have to wear a time medallion for the rest of his life."

They'd lost him. "Wear a what?"

Phantom turned to him. "A time medallion. It's this necklace that lets you stay in another time—if you take it off, you'll be sent back to the time you've come from. Since you're coming from this time, you can't take it off. Like, ever. Or you'll be sent back here."

"Oh. I don't really mind but I feel like I'll accidentally take it off or something," Kwan flustered.

"Yeah… that's kinda an unrealistic expectation. I'm pretty sure it's made of metal, so you're screwed if you have to go through any security checkpoints."

He had a point. "Well, is there any alternative?"

Phantom frowned. "I mean… there was that one time that, uh, with my evil future self. You know? He phased the medallion into me and I got stuck for a while? We could try that with Kwan."

Clockwork cocked his head to the side and shifted into an old man. "Daniel, he's human. You can't just… _phase _random objects into his body. That could pierce one of his meat cores."

"Do you mean organs?"

Kwan followed the ghosts' conversation with something akin to horror. "I—I don't think I want anything piercing my organs."

Phantom sighed. "I guess that's fair."

"If you give me some time, I may be able to build a more compact version of the medallion technology, something that _could_ be embedded underneath his skin," Clockwork offered. "Although, that would take months. He'll still have to wear the medallion in the meantime."

"But you're the ghost of time! Can't you just make one right now? Or borrow one from the future?"

Clockwork rolled his eyes. "It's time technology, Daniel. Sometimes even _I _have to do things the long way."

"That's really inconvenient." He gravitated back towards Kwan. "You're okay with wearing the medallion, for now, right?"

He shrugged. "I don't think I have a choice?"

"Eh, I guess you don't."

Clockwork led them to another room, with lo and behold, _more _clocks. With a flourish, he pulled a clunky, gray medallion with a gold rim off of its hook on the wall. At least it didn't look trashy. It didn't look like it'd attract much attention either—he could stuff it under his shirt and nobody would ever notice. It could be a pain during football season, but that was future Kwan's problem.

He accepted the medallion from Clockwork and slipped it around his neck. Phantom floated to the side, lost in thought. "It kind of suits you."

"Thanks?"

Clockwork coughed. "Kwan. You understand that you won't be able to take this off for as long as you wear it, right? Under no circumstances. Otherwise, you'll be pulled straight back into the future and will have to harass Daniel into returning you to my tower."

Phantom crossed his arms. "He won't have to 'harass' me—"

"Yeah, I get it. And this is only temporary. Once you finish a smaller version, you'll stick it in me like some kinda chip."

"Indeed. I expect that you're ready to return, now?"

_Return_.

Return back to his time, back to his life. Back to 2006. Where Danny Fenton was sixteen, a teenage superhero under the guise of one of Kwan's peers. A boy that had eons ahead of him, unbeknownst to anyone but Kwan. And he couldn't say anything about it to anyone. Not even Danny himself.

Was he ready?

"I think so."

_Not at all._

Phantom's face softened. "It was good seeing you again, Kwan. It's kinda ironic—I spend all day with high schoolers, but I've forgotten what it's really like to be sixteen with the rest of my life ahead of me. _You're—_" his voice cracked, "I think I needed a blast from my past. Thank you."

Kwan didn't know Danny at all. He'd learned so much about him today, but he was still a mystery. So why did he feel like crying?

"You're welcome."

Clockwork twirled his staff and suddenly the world blurred around him. Everything looked like it was underwater, rippled and distorted. The last thing that Kwan saw before it all went black was Phantom—_Danny_—smiling.

At that moment, Kwan knew that he would carry that smile within him like a torch. If Danny could shoulder an endless future with that kind of smile, then surely Kwan could embrace that warmth in his own future.

Because what's life if you don't live it to the fullest?


End file.
